Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
Couple of reasonable 10k clips gone through. Need to reverse this decline. Any good news and we could snap back. I’m putting my hand in my pocket, won’t take much here
I’ve E-mailed company and Berlin this week. No reply.
Can’t work this out, think might get news Monday. Potentially could bounce strongly like Wescoal did today. At least was a decent bid at 350 on JSE, maybe London moved to take in stops at 20p. Who knows but I’ll be having a drink tonight
So, changes at Uitkomst seem to be paying dividends, production is stable and coal prices have rebounded. A good purchase.
Makhado: if we do have 4 options, and are waiting on PIC/IDC as the number one choice then we’re in good position I think. If PIC/IDC fails then we have an alternative where we’re waiting for term sheets. Everything is ready to go once financing is confirmed. Either way, green light imminent.
Costs have been reduced considerably, removal of Brown will reduce this further.
Worth a tickle down at this level
Thanks for confirming, I wished DB good luck in his new role and he mentioned PIC. As IDC approved bond financing recently, he highlighted it will speed up the process so this could be agreed as early as mid-Feb. I’m disappointed Brown has gone, we emailed a lot over the years, but take his pay check off the bottom line, and with Brenda running financing then his departure isn’t relevant in big picture.
Well company want you to accept deal. I think there’s no other bidder and if Anglo drop out then it’s going to zero. Given funding required think its lesson learnt here.
Sold out at 5.5p. Buying MC Mining. Need to make this back.
I hope I’m wrong here, but think this tanks Monday. No word on funding. Market disappointed that not started building and financing not complete. Something amiss, maybe no deal as coking coal has collapsed in recent weeks. See what results bring, need something special out of Uitkomst and something positive on Makhado. Good luck all.
Cheers Bozmo. I heard something similar here, since COP21 it’s been more difficult for companies to get funding. Company looking at more debt which I was disappointed they didn’t do originally but this is a very viable project and investors will benefit from greater debt in the debt/eq mix at these levels, I.e less dilution
Also hearing the debt funding was to be signed off 'early' this week. This naturally follows on what the company said before that they would agree debt funding before the equity raise. The debt funding was 2-weeks behind schedule as has been previously stated, they had hoped to complete before financial year end. Interesting times, just a 9-month build so in less than a year we should be producing at Makhado.
Equity Roadshow starts this week, hopefully that should garner some interest
Share price is an absolute bargain down here. Confident David Brown will deliver
HCC $205 (up from $202.50) – Makhado assumption $165
RAND 14.45 - Makhado assumption 13.75
Both considerably ‘on side’
Assumed would be ArcelorMittal. Now thinking Glencore.
1300 trading JSE = 71p
European power markets flying again this morning. +3-5%
Met coal best of bulks: BMO
BMO has named metallurgical coal as “the best of the bulk commodities,” primarily due to increasing demand from India.
MO analyst Colin Hamilton said in a note the global material shortage at iron producers - which are also coking coal consumers - including Europe, Japan, Korea, Brazil, China, and India was also boosting met coal's profile.
He saw China's influence as a commodity importer starting to ease, with more focus on India and South East Asian countries, with the former already an important demand centre for coking coal and challenging China for the top spot.
In recent years, India has bypassed large met coal importer Japan twice, the first time in 2011 to become the largest buyer of Australian hard coking coal (HCC) and now again to become the world's second-largest steel producing country.
Hamilton said ongoing urbanisation and industrialisation would continue to grow India's demand over the coming decade allowing it to challenge the largest met coal importer position, despite that fact the country would never be an industrial powerhouse
"We haircut the optimistic Indian government estimates hard, but even then see Indian steel output rising over 50% through 2025. This equates to an additional 15 million tonnes per annum of coking coal needed, making India very much the world's largest met coal importer.
"Indeed, we are of the view that Indian steelmakers should be agreeing to any HCC benchmarks which exist in the future," he said.
Looking at the met coal market in general, Hamilton said fundamentals were positive, with a constrained supply environment and natural demand centres growing, although he warned bulk commodities could not have a "heavy, sustained imbalance" between supply and demand.
"In our view commodity markets self-solve, and the key to determining market dynamics is working out what has to give to return the market to balance.
"Certainly, attitudes to supply projects could change, but we believe financing any new coal project through debt syndication will be increasingly difficult in an ESG-conscious world. Thus, we would focus on that great balancer of commodity markets - China - where we anticipate imports trend lower over the coming years," he said.
Hamilton said China's supply growth options were looking limited, leading BMO to believe Chinese imports would have to decline to permit further growth elsewhere.
BMO forecasts weaker Chinese output and slower Asia ex-China growth than others, while ironmaking and met coal demand growth are expected to underperform that of steel due to growing scrap availability.
"Taking everything into account, even without global steel demand growth we see met coal as fundamentally well supported over the medium-long term," Hamilton said.
Cheers Hemmings and other contributors. JSE definitely looks more interesting again. Maybe some news coming, and coal prices up again today.
Thanks Boz. There’s been a good rally today in European (thermal) coal, electricity and carbon credits. Hopefully should start march higher now
What’s the best way of following Hard Coking Coal pricing? Link anyone? Thanks in advance
At least with moodys not downgrading SA is still investment grade. Rand having a decent move this week but at least sterling/rand lower so London around 47/48. Hopefully something positive soon, my patience is wearing a bit thin